Censored chapter

Mikhail Katkov, the editor of the journal The Russian Messenger in which Demons was originally serialized, refused to publish the chapter "At Tikhon's". Dostoyevsky considered the chapter to be essential to an understanding of the psychology of Stavrogin, and he tried desperately but unsuccessfully to save it through revisions and concessions to Katkov.[36] He was eventually forced to drop it and rewrite parts of the novel that dealt with its subject matter.[37] The chapter concerns Stavrogin's visit to the monk Tikhon at the local monastery, during which he confesses, in the form of a lengthy and detailed written document, to taking sexual advantage of a downtrodden and vulnerable 12-year-old girl, Matryosha, and then waiting and listening as she goes through the process of hanging herself. He describes his marriage to Marya Lebyadkina as a deliberate attempt to cripple his own life, largely as a consequence of this crime.[38] Dostoyevsky himself never included the chapter in subsequent publications of the novel, but it is generally included in modern editions as an appendix. It has also been published separately, translated from Russian to English by S. S. Koteliansky and Virginia Woolf and edited by Sigmund Freud.[39][40]

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